Sometimes I wonder, just wonder, if I should try and take life a bit slower. Then I do try and it doesn’t really work. Because one thing that living with the threat of inherited disease has done for me is to make me very determined to live as fully as possible. I give myself over…
Author: Clare Best
I am Clare Best – poet, writer, librettist, teacher of creative writing.
My first career was as a fine bookbinder. I've also worked as a bookseller, and for many years as an editor.
Poetry publications: Treasure Ground (HappenStance 2009), Excisions (Waterloo Press 2011), Breastless (Pighog Press 2011), CELL (Frogmore Press 2015), Springlines (Little Toller 2017), Each Other (Waterloo Press 2019), End of Season / Fine di stagione (Frogmore Press 2022), Beyond the Gate (Worple Press, 2023).
Memoir: The Missing List (Linen Press 2018).
Quiz: how much do you know about water in Sussex?
1. On average, how much water do you think each of us uses every day? A) 125 litres B) 87 litres C) 150 litres D) 60 litres 2. What does the Sussex dialect word ‘floush-hole’ mean? A) a hole in the ground, dug for use as a latrine B) a hole which receives the waste…
After the big swim…
I swam the 5 km on 27 April in two hours and seventeen minutes. It was satisfying to finish, I didn’t really mind about the time! And I raised £500 for Marie Curie Cancer Care. Job well done. To be honest, I didn’t much enjoy the first 150 lengths because there were too many swimmers…
Swimathon
I’ve finally done it. After thinking about it for several years, I’ve signed up for the Swimathon. On April 27th I’ll be swimming 5 km (just over 3 miles), that’s two hundred lengths of the local Leisure Centre pool. The swim is in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. Swimming has always been one of…
‘Bodies of Work’
I am pleased to present, as a round-up of this year’s work on the project, the text of an article I wrote for issue 9 of Artemis Poetry, November 2012. My thanks to Kay Syrad for inviting me to write this piece and to Dilys Wood and Anne Stewart of Artemis Poetry for kind permission…
The Ethics of Genetics, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, 3rd December 2012
Bobbie Farsides and Sue Eckstein invited me to contribute to a conference for fifth year medical students at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. It was good to be back there fourteen months after the Self-portrait without Breasts project launched at BSMS in October last year. I was delighted and honoured to present the poems and…
Sitting with Laura’s images in the Forum
The morning after the Self-portrait without Breasts event at Exeter University, I spent a couple of hours sitting in the Forum, a little distance from the exhibition of Laura’s photos. I really wanted to study the images up close, admire the quality of Laura’s work, the quality of the prints (which is superb) but I…
Self-portrait without Breasts in Exeter, 27th November 2012
It was quite a journey by rail over the flood waters on November 27th, but what a wonderful event Andy Brown and Corinna Wagner and many others had organised at Exeter University. Thanks to all of you for everything you did to make it happen. Special thanks to Dr James Mackay for coming from London…
Home again
I’m back, after an invigorating trip to Boston, Montreal and Toronto. There’s plenty to process as I settle. There’s also another event to prepare for: ‘Self-portrait without Breasts’ at Exeter University on 27 November, by kind invitation of Andy Brown (Director of Creative Writing) for Exeter University’s Medical Humanities Theme and the new Humanities and…
Reading at the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre at Ryerson University, Toronto, 10th October 2012
I don’t know how to write about the experience of coming here to present my work – it has been too wonderful, really. Wednesday evening’s event was beautifully planned and organised, every detail generously thought through. Many thanks to Irene Gammel and her team at the MLC, and special thanks to John Wrighton. I feel…
